


Sandscapes

by avi17



Category: The Dark Crystal (1982), The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance (TV)
Genre: Can you call it slow burn if the chapters are out of order, Gen, M/M, Mild sexual content as of chapter 2, Non-Chronological, Puppets makin' puppets, References to canon-typical torture, Vignette Collection, more tags for later chapters
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-08
Updated: 2020-11-17
Packaged: 2021-03-03 04:33:39
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 5,857
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24079048
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/avi17/pseuds/avi17
Summary: "He is simply a mirror of skekGra’s heart- opposite and yet in so many ways the same."Snapshots of the Heretic and the Wanderer's centuries in their desert home.
Relationships: skekGra & urGoh (Dark Crystal), skekGra/urGoh (Dark Crystal)
Comments: 21
Kudos: 33





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [goldleaf1066](https://archiveofourown.org/users/goldleaf1066/gifts).



> New fandom! Well. Not new, but it's taken me a while to actually finish anything.
> 
> Damn I love these gay alien grandpas a lot.
> 
> Dedicated to goldleaf for peer pressuring me to actually finish something XD

"How do you put up with me?" SkekGra bursts out one day without meaning to. It's easy to mix up thinking and speaking aloud in the solitude of the desert, particularly when his loudest companion is often the distant roar of a sandstorm or the clacking of urGoh's delicate little tools, rather than the mystic himself. UrGoh blinks at him in a way he finds contemplative when he’s in a charitable mood, slow and stupid when he isn’t- but he must realize that it wasn’t a real question, and says nothing.

The new-made Heretic returns to his work, deliberately biting his tongue to avoid talking to the delicate little plants he’s attempting to cultivate- which he only now realizes he’s been doing all afternoon. The thrice-damned nail, he remembers belatedly, is also a likely factor in turning his internal monologue external. He’s only beginning to truly process and understand how what they did affected him- the endless dull headache, sharpened when he lays on it wrong, the occasional twitches in his fingers, sentences that jumble themselves hopelessly on his tongue. The strange feeling that some part of who he had previously been was pushed out with each strike of the hammer.

How it must affect urGoh too, though he has avoided asking for fear of the answer.

He chances a glance at the mystic only to find him stirring the same pot of soup he had been for the last hour, rhythm steady, infuriatingly serene. SkekGra- still feeling like a babbling idiot- envies him that so much he could scream.

“You know what? Don’t answer that. You could put up with anything.”

UrGoh glances back to him without pausing his work, and with a growl of frustration, the Heretic tosses his trowel aside and stalks out to the balcony.

They’ve been there for three excruciating unum, as skekGra slowly regained the capacity to walk and speak and exist somewhat as he had before- though his swords are hidden beneath a sack of flour in the corner so that he will never have to look at them again. The one definite he knows is that that part of his life is over. What new part is unfolding is much less certain, but UrGoh has been a constant presence at his side- steady, but somehow far from comforting. They had spoken deep into many nights since the day their eyes were opened to each other, but those talks had been full of abstract theory and vision, ambition and memory. They had been fools, he knows now, to believe that their fellows would listen, but they had been committed fools, and the planning and the  _ purpose _ had consumed their waking hours. 

But they had failed, and skekGra had ended up an unwilling pincushion, and such talk eventually runs dry as the days drag on. In the desert they are filled with hauling jugs of water, hanging draperies, and ingratiating themselves to the hesitant Dousan so they can trade for cushions and grain and seedlings to plant. Every moment cannot be fueled by purpose, and life continues, domestic and mundane, as they slowly carve out a home. Away from the enormity of the vision, skekGra finds himself considering his counterpart as an individual- and finding someone he barely knows at all.

He wonders often if urGoh even  _ likes _ him- or merely tolerates him now that Thra has shoved them unceremoniously together. 

The other Skeksis had never merely tolerated...well, anything really. They are opinionated by nature, reveling in one thing and hating another with equal fervor, but almost never indifferent. He knows how to handle them, the squabbles and hierarchies and high-strung tensions of the castle- though he had never held much love for that atmosphere and had escaped it on his conquests at every opportunity. But the placid, inscrutable gazes that follow him around their home are entirely alien to anything that he knows, and he has no idea how to answer them.

The desert below their balcony is beautiful, even to skekGra’s untrained eye. It glitters in the blood-red and purple sunset, like the vast ocean had looked the few times he’d seen it. Like the hazy memory of the only time he had seen a mystic dissolve into nothing, though the thought disturbs him now and he pushes it aside. For a brief moment, he feels the bizarre impulse to jump- not because he wishes to die ( _ far _ from it), but because he just wants to be somewhere  _ else _ . Despite all the work they have done to turn a barren ruin into a home, at night the walls still close in and he feels utterly trapped- the laughter of his former allies mixed with the throbbing in his head and the remembrance of their promise-  _ if we ever see your face again outside whatever miserable hole you choose to hide in, you will learn what _ **_true_ ** _ pain is.  _ **_Both_ ** _ of you. _

It is only beginning to sink in that this is  _ it.  _ This is his- _ their-  _ life now.

He is deep enough in his reverie that he startles when urGoh sits down beside him, cookfire forgotten but for the faint smell of herbs and smoke on his clothes. He is used to silent company, so he pays him little mind, but there is a new, pointed look in those heavy-lidded eyes, first trained on him, then sweeping out over the expanse of sand below.

"I.....miss it...too."

Caught off guard, skekGra blinks. “Miss what?”

UrGoh lets out a rumbling chuckle, and skekGra cannot help but watch the swirls etched deep into his face crinkle with the curl of his lips. “Every...thing.” He gestures with one of those long, surprisingly dexterous hands out across the Crystal Sea and to the horizon beyond. “The world.”

SkekGra feels a flash of irritation at how easy he must be to read- but almost immediately, he realizes that is foolish. UrGoh is not the Emperor, asking pointed questions about every city not taken quickly enough or enemy left breathing, nor skekZok scanning one of his fellows’ faces for every twitch of pain beneath his cruel, clever hands. He is simply a mirror of skekGra’s heart- opposite and yet in so many ways the same. They had both loved Thra in their way, and relished in the remotest uncharted expanses- though one sought to dominate the land before him, the other merely to coexist with it.

Of course one known as the Wanderer feels the same.

SkekGra breathes deeply, inhaling urGoh’s very presence like air and feeling his agitation settle a little. Eyes still on the horizon, he catches the faintest glimpse of a line of trees beyond the sand, teasing and hopelessly out of reach. He pulls his knees in and digs for the words to answer, but they twist into knots like a Sifan rope, and he loses them again with a groan of despair.

UrGoh sighs, his eyes soft. "This will....not be...forever."

He could mean any number of things- being cooped up in hiding, waiting for the next Dousan caravan or the next Great Conjunction or their destiny to find them. He could mean the ceaseless headache and the twitching and the frustration. Or that they will not be like  _ this _ forever, separated in a way that leaves them hollow at the core, incomplete. It isn't difficult to understand why the other skeksis reject that knowledge so vehemently and instead seek to fill that void with excess of every sort.

SkekGra knows firsthand how it feels to strip all of that away and face what is left underneath.

Urgoh rests a heavy, comforting hand on his back- a new touch, but not unpleasant.  _ Safe. _ And perhaps not incomplete after all. Not entirely.

He does not pull away.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yay, another one down! Mild sexual content warning in this one, though it's not very explicit. Also remember that these are vignettes being posted out of chronological order- a lot of time has passed here, but we'll return to their earlier days in later ones. (Don't @ me XDDD)

The first crop of urdrupes are first pressed into their hands by a stern-faced Dousan trader, who urges caution but parts with them willingly enough in exchange for a knife skekGra no longer needs.

Naturally, they eat an entire handful each, and come to a full two days later without even a shred of memory of what they experienced. 

They learn moderation eventually, sort of. They also quickly realize that the Dousan's claim that the berries will allow them to speak with Thra is a fabrication- or at least a gross oversimplification of the breadth of sensation involved. Thra is  _ alive _ in ways they are only beginning to understand, but it has no voice save Mother Aughra, and she has been holed up in her observatory for nearly as long as the Heretic can remember and is now little more than a whispered name. They are on their own.

The experience is always novel, never predictable or comfortable. At times it's euphoric, colors impossibly vivid and in ceaseless motion as they chase the song of Thra that vibrates and echoes from the very walls. There are answers to their questions with beautiful clarity, and he sees words and crude pictures etched into stone, a gleaming blade snapped in two, the alignment of stars in an explosion of brilliant, otherworldly white light. He sees  _ them _ , many times after the first that had drawn them together- as they once were, as they  _ should _ be. Terrible and beautiful.  _ Unity. _

Such answers are rare and fleeting, but worth all it takes to find them.

Just as often, however, the effects frighten him, amplifying the weight of all his fears and mistakes until he can no longer push them aside. He finds himself plunged into the thick of his most horrific misdeeds, feeling his own past heart swell at the death and destruction even as his current self loathes it. The logical part of his mind that knows where he is and _ when _ he is deserts him- the sounds and smells of battle are as real as if he never left them behind. The hot gush of blood over his claws and the metallic taste of it on his tongue, the crunch of living bones beneath his feet. The dreadful singing of the blade and the screams of the creatures it has butchered- mixing and growing into a painful cacophony in his brain. 

Then another layer of excruciating noise- shrill, cruel laughter- and pain like a wedge somehow splitting his entire being in two.

_ Hasn’t that happened to him twice now, in a way? _

And beneath that, a creeping darkness, oppressive and ever-present. He knows it well- all Skeksis do, for it is the thing they fear most.  _ Oblivion _ . It means different things to each of them- the loss of power, or control, or material pleasures- but ultimately it is the unknown that they cannot face, cannot even  _ fathom _ . For skekGra, it is existence without urGoh, sundered from his other half for an endless eternity- as he is already sundered from his own kind, and from a home he no longer remembers. Would he still exist enough to feel loneliness? Or would he simply  _ cease _ , fading into the utter  _ nothing _ that he has always dreaded awaits him at the end of this fractured life?

He returns to awareness trembling after those attempts, the blood-tang in his mouth from a bitten tongue, fingers dug so deep into urGoh's arm that he ends up with a handprint bruised into his own. UrGoh's eyes, fixed on his, are heavy and inscrutable as always, and he wants to ask urGoh if the urdrupes ever take him to such dark places. Perhaps they do not- maybe urGoh has no such horrors in his past to remember. He hopes that is so. But the question sticks in his dry throat, and instead urGoh asks, more gently than he deserves, "Do you...still…want to...do this?”

In that moment, every fiber of his being wants desperately to say no, but he swallows his misgivings and nods. They need more guidance.

Today, though, the ride is gentle- useless in their quest for knowledge but pleasant and sweet. (An experiment in sun-drying the berries has left them rather less potent, it seems.) He and urGoh are tangled naked in their canopied nest of blankets, skekGra’s head nestled into the Wanderer’s shoulder, the tips of their tails brushing absently. A heavy cloud of smoke floats around their heads from urGoh’s pipe, broken sometimes by the rings and other more intricate shapes he blows to amuse himself. (SkekGra suspects there may be a bit of Mystic magic in that- the most he’s ever managed to produce is a coughing fit.)

Somewhere in the back of his mind, he knows that they are supposed to be doing something beyond just lazing in hazy bliss, but articulating it feels needlessly complicated.

He tries anyway, for some silly reason. “Shouldn’t….we….?”

But the thought is already gone like another cloud of smoke. UrGoh chuckles at that, deep and affectionate, his entire chest vibrating with it. The deep grooves in his face still crinkle and move when he smiles, and skekGra never gets bored of watching them.

“Don’t...talk…for once…”

Vaguely indignant, the Heretic attempts to hoist himself partly upright on one elbow and immediately regrets it- the drapes around them still look mostly normal, but are shifting in a dizzying and definitely unnatural way. He plays off his immediate collapse as intentional, dipping to nuzzle his beak into urGoh’s hair and nipping when he finds flesh. UrGoh snorts- he’s not fooled, unsurprisingly- but he tilts his head back approvingly and pulls skekGra closer so it couldn’t matter less.

“For once?” the Heretic murmurs, digging fingers into ample flesh, tracing the creases and spirals he finds there too. One of urGoh’s hands sneaks in to grasp skekGra’s chin and lift, and the eyes he meets are slightly unfocused but mischievous.

“You...heard...me.” SkekGra squawks in protest, but he’s put himself at an obvious disadvantage, and urGoh tips him easily back onto the pillows, leaning over to trace his jaw with the same sort of quiet awe that skekGra feels towards him. “Just... _ feel _ ...”

It occurs to him in that moment- no great revelation, just absently- that he loves urGoh. ...Has he ever loved anything before? He had loved his work once, but in a cruel, fierce way that could not feel more different than he feels right now. What he feels now seems wonderful, but at the same time easy as the gentle shift of the sands, natural as breathing. UrGoh would probably remind him that it _ is _ natural, that they are two halves of a shared soul, but skekGra knows better than to think it so simple.

He loves urGoh far more than he has ever loved himself.

Every nerve in his body is warm and thrumming and alive, and when urGoh's hand begins to idly explore down the bumps of his ribs, he sighs his approval. The aimless wandering eventually gives way to more purpose, those surprisingly clever fingers coaxing gently before sinking deep into wet heat that welcomes his touch eagerly. SkekGra groans and shivers, at both the amplified sensation and the fact that there are no power dynamics, no competition, no undercurrent of loathing or anger. No ulterior motive. UrGoh is touching him simply because, on this whole, vast planet, it's what he wants most to be doing at this moment.

In the face of something so  _ wonderful _ , the memories of darkness have never felt farther away.

There’s no one to be quiet for in the middle of the desert- besides the Dousan, and they already think the place is haunted- so they don’t. He gasps and clings to handfuls of urGoh’s hair, pulling him closer and deeper, as if he could press their flesh close enough to meld again into one being. He’s never been so glad to lose a fight, and when those clever fingers do  _ something _ \-  _ twist, maybe? who knows or cares as long as they do it  _ **_again_ ** \- he hisses and swears and urGoh laughs and laughs. The sound of it makes the air shimmer, swirl with shades of burnt, warm yellows and oranges like the desert sky, and skekGra has never heard anything more beautiful.

Laughing in return, he rolls over to give as good as he's getting and more, spinning room be damned. 

_ Ah yes. This is unity too. _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading! I definitely have more of these planned, but I would love to knock out my longer WIP first. We shall see ;) Comments always appreciated!


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This fic is still alive! I got distracted for a bit with that smut fic, and with my other WIP that I'm still endlessly struggling with. No nsfw or any other warnings for this chapter, beyond a little canon-typical blood.
> 
> Remember, these are non-chronological-this one takes place after the first one, but long before the second.

_Shhkkk. Shhkkk._

It’s a soothing sound, the knife peeling away thin layers of wood, slowly carving out the right shape. It’s begun to look like…well, like _something_. It might be too generous to call it a face yet. Really it has a closer resemblance to a lumpy potato (though so do Podlings, and they get along alright from what he can tell.) A work in progress- he’ll go with that.

He'd first caught urGoh fiddling with one a few weeks into their confinement, once he was less concerned that skekGra would keel over if left alone for a few minutes. It was an Arathim, carved somewhat crudely but operated by little strings that attached to each leg and hooked around urGoh’s fingers. He had explained that he had learned the art from a particular sort of Gelfling song-tellers, who set up tiny stages on the streets of Ha’rar and entertained children with tales of great heroes and monsters.

SkekGra had been fascinated, and it has only grown since. He loves manipulating the clever little things, making their tiny limbs move. _Oh_ , the _stories_ he could have told with these if he’d had them while he was still conquering. The other Skeksis would have hated his lengthy, dramatic retellings over the feast table even more.

The thought nearly makes him miss them for a moment, but he shoves that feeling away before it can take root. After the welcome their new ideas had received, there’s nothing left to miss.

The puppets are fun to fool around with, certainly. _Building_ them, on the other hand…

“Damn this-” the Heretic hisses, cutting off in a sharp yell as the knife slips and slices into the leathery skin of his hand. He drops both the tool and the block of wood, clutching the cut with his other hand and cursing them both as they involuntarily tremble and twitch. _They_ did that too- the nail has somehow driven a wedge between his brain and different bits of his body, leaving the tethers that control them frayed and not always subject to his command. UrGoh has told him a hundred times to be patient, that it will improve with time, but no amount of logical knowledge that that’s true can keep him from endless frustration. He had once had the dexterity to carve up a Gruenak for hours without allowing it to die- _not_ that he wants to now, the mere thought makes him sick with self-loathing- but _now-_

As if on cue, urGoh’s head peeks slowly around the corner.

“What’s…….wrong?” _As if he can’t tell,_ skekGra fumes, when they’re bleeding everywhere. He tears a strip from the hem of his robes and struggles to wrap it with only one remaining hand. (The fact that this would be easy for urGoh does nothing to make him feel more charitable towards his calmer half.)

"I am having a _problem_ in here."

UrGoh’s brow raises in what skekGra realizes too late is mirth. "Or…..does the problem have…...”

"Don't you DARE finish that sentence or I will tear out your tongue with my bare hands!” SkekGra all but shrieks, wheeling around so fast that he knocks half his supplies off his work table.

Urgoh just chuckles.

SkekGra had been able to threaten once. Gelfling, Podling, and even sometimes the other Skeksis would cower when he truly raised his voice. But he has never been able to intimidate urGoh, not even when they had first met on the road as strangers- and by nature, enemies. Perhaps that had been the first thing to truly fascinate him about urGoh- that such a harmless, sluggish being had been so utterly unafraid of him. He isn’t sure now whether urGoh had trusted him- still foolish now, and even moreso then- or had simply known that he wouldn’t be idiotic enough to truly maim himself even in a fit of rage.

Either way, it makes him feel oddly small.

UrGoh finally plods his way over to skekGra, his own fist balled around the wound but otherwise looking entirely unbothered. There’s a wave of shame at that, even as urGoh silently takes over winding the cloth around skekGra’s palm. “Stupid creature….you’re bleeding too,” he murmurs pointlessly, because of course he knows, and he has enough hands to take care of them both without skekGra’s help. That shouldn’t bother him, yet everything seems to bother him these days, bursting out of him in impotent little explosions of temper that melt away as fast as they come. He makes an effort to swallow this one down- feeling useless is no reason to lash out against the one caring for him so tenderly.

Still, as soon as urGoh finishes, he’s tearing away more cloth and snatching the mystic’s hand in turn. When urGoh makes no objection- to that or to being called stupid, which he must have learned to ignore by now- he sets to work. He cleans the blood away silently, without meeting his counterpart’s eyes, focusing instead on the swirls carved into urGoh’s fingertips and palms. UrGoh is all spirals- soft, curling lines, winding tail, even more winding speech- so opposite of skekGra's sharp body and sharper words. Yet this scar will join a collection of identical ones that they share- reminders that they are indeed one and the same, and that skekGra needs to be more careful with something so precious.

(...That isn’t a word he has ever applied to anything before, but it fits, so he lets it be.)

When the gash is thoroughly wrapped and tied off, he waits a moment longer than necessary before letting the hand held within both of his fall. He is still learning to apologize, but as with everything, urGoh has given him more time than he deserves.

The silence hangs between them for a moment, heavy with tentative, unsaid words, until skekGra breaks it with an awkward cough and bends to pick up the mess he made. Nothing is broken, at least, though the head skekGra had been attempting to carve now has a flat slice out of its rounded top thanks to the slip of his blade. He sighs- there’s no fixing that, he’ll have to start over yet again- and sinks back onto the bench. With a grunt of effort, urGoh straightens his knees enough to sit beside him.

“What…was this…...going to be?” UrGoh asks, rolling the ruined head between his fingers.

SkekGra snorts. “A Gelfling. Looks just like one, right?” They’ve floated the idea of eventually revealing their history and their plan to the right Gelfling through this particular art, and skekGra is all for it, but they have a _long_ way to go.

UrGoh kindly refrains from answering his question, and instead picks up a new block of wood and the carving knife. “Watch…again……” he murmurs, and begins to shave away paper-thin bits of wood, so much finer than skekGra’s hack-job on the other had been. A minute of this in silence already has skekGra grinding his teeth, and urGoh huffs out another laugh. “I told you…….it takes……..patience.”

SkekGra rolls his eyes. “I think we’ve established that you got all the patience in the split.”

UrGoh shrugs a single shoulder. “I am…….patient with……..myself.” It takes skekGra a moment of confusion to realize that _self_ , in this case, also extends to him.

When urGoh presses the block and the knife into his hands, he pauses for a moment- afraid of frustration, of _failure_ \- and most, he realizes suddenly, afraid of disappointing urGoh. He has no experience with delicate things, nor has he ever known how to _create_ \- only to destroy. But that is behind him, so he grips the knife tighter and puts it to its new purpose. The first slice is still too deep thanks to the traitorous tremors in his hands, but when he takes a deep breath in an attempt to force them away, urGoh reaches to lay a steadying hand over each of his. The shaking doesn’t disappear altogether, but it calms, and he lets urGoh guide the next cut, and the one after it, gentler and more precise than he had ever managed on his own. As they fall into a near-mindless rhythm, hands moving as one, one more realization worms its way into skekGra’s mind- one that had once frightened him beyond all reason, but now brings only comfort and a sense of _right_.

He will never be alone again. He never _has_ to be.   
  
And they are at their best together.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Obviously I still haven't finished my other WIP before posting more of this, whoops XD But uhhh comments feed me so if you wanna see more, let me know! ;P


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've been staring at this for months and I can't look at it anymore XD Go forth into the void, chapter.

They plan out the little loft initially because, if anything, they sometimes need space _away_ from each other, even if all that separates them is a gauzy curtain. It is rare that tensions bubble into a fight, if only because urGoh is so difficult to rile to that point, but they often simmer with lingering, incessant irritation. No amount of growing affection between them can mask that they are beings of two very different dispositions, and more than once, skekGra wonders if perhaps their fellows had the right of it by staying far away from each other.

He wonders if urGoh wonders that, too. For a long time, he fears the answer too much to ask.

Though skekGra put his own hands to building it, for several trine it is urGoh’s space, its canopied entrance a sacred threshold that he dares not cross. His only hint as to what goes on within is the constant haze of heavy, sweet-smelling smoke. It’s an easy habit to rib him for- and no doubt contributes to the fact that he seems to move slower every day- but he can tell it also acts as a balm for their constant mutual headache. He can feel it dull the throbbing in his own head even from the other side of their home, so he keeps at least some of the barbs to himself.

It’s an odd process, slowly learning which sensations filter through the bond of their shared flesh- and which they merely experience in tandem as a result of having only the other for company. He knows they share the worst of experiences- pain, mutilation, but also its alleviation- but most are more subtle- bursts of joy or irritation, waves of grief and regret that threaten to bowl him over with their terrible unfamiliarity. He can never quite tell if they originate with him or not. Do emotions bleed between them as well, or are they merely reacting to the same sparse stimuli within their cozy little prison?

It may well be even less complicated than that. Perhaps he is simply allowing himself to _feel_ for the first time since he was torn from his more introspective half, and this strange, tentative normalcy is like walking on eggshells.

He had wondered in the beginning if that bond would extend to only being able to sleep at the same time- his trine as a warlord were filled with enough sleepless nights to speculate if that had been what kept him awake all along. He had found quickly that it did not, and he is glad of it, or they'd have quickly lost what little sanity they have left. They almost never seemed to sleep at the same time in the early days after their exile, and for a time it seems that it will remain that way forever. UrGoh seems to be able to doze off anywhere, a trait that skekGra finds irritating and at times deeply envies. It may be the nature of a mystic, or whatever it is that he burns in that water-pipe, or both, but the heavy air of relaxation never quite leaves him. 

He denies having ever fallen asleep in the middle of a sentence, but skekGra knows otherwise.

SkekGra, meanwhile, is incapable of stillness- the den they've made in the Circle is barely larger than a single room of the Crystal Castle, and even that had been unable to hold him. He had relished in the march to new lands and the exhilaration of bloodshed, and even though he has renounced both- and grows more ashamed and horrified by the day at the memories- he is still unused to feeling caged. And when he does sleep, the memories visit him all the clearer. So he tinkers constantly, frenetic and agitated, painting or poking little hairs into one of the puppets with a bone needle, or working on the messenger they've only just begun to build- chisel clinking sloppily against rock, carving rough shapes that he knows urGoh will patiently smooth later. He clicks his beak and taps his talons against wood and clay and stone, sometimes for hours without realizing, anything to alleviate the creeping silence.

They haunt the Circle like ghosts in the cold desert night, sleeping and waking in turn, separated by a veil somehow less tangible than the floaty, mismatched curtains around the loft.

He isn’t quite sure when things begin to change. But they do.

It comes in a thousand little moments- jokes that begin to crop up over and over until they can finish them for each other, meals prepared with care for the other’s tastes, a helping hand when needed. Beauty and _wonder_ , created by their hands alone- then touches lingering longer and longer. Then words, at first halting and awkward, then more certain, then jubilant, _reverent._

But still, he allows urGoh that small space without him. He isn’t entirely sure why- whether it is simple habit, or respect, or- if he looks inward with honesty- the fear of rejection, lingering long past a time when it made sense. It is simply an accepted part of this new life.

Until one evening, when the touches are new and they can barely stand to separate, urGoh sets off on his slow shuffling steps up the ramp as normal- and then turns back. He raises a brow, eyes heavy as ever but with an impish spark. 

“Are...you…...coming?” he asks, as though it’s no real question at all.

SkekGra blinks for a moment, but then sputters out, “I- yes, of course,” because it’s not.

Following him up the ramp seems to take an eternity- and not only because urGoh walks at about a quarter the speed skekGra normally would. Ducking through the hangings drawn aside for him is finally crossing that threshold, being allowed into this external space even as he slowly is allowed into urGoh’s inner world, now that he has finally put aside his own loss and anger enough to delve there. Like urGoh himself, the little loft is so much more inside than he expected- hung with softly glowing lanterns and a mix of charms and talismans, some of desert glass that refracts the last light of the Dying Sun into spots like firebugs dancing across the curtains.

He kneels awkwardly, momentarily dumbstruck, until he feels the vibration of urGoh’s chuckling. There was a time when being laughed at would have angered him, but now it’s contagious, and feels appropriate for his foolish reticence. Breathing the same air, bathed in the same shimmering light, they come together once more, seeking unity.

The feeling of the place changes after that- becomes truly shared, a _home_ with no walls or limitations. Their habits never quite meld, especially as their work escalates in earnest- skekGra still functions in wild bursts, distracted and frustrated in turn, while urGoh is slow as the growth of a gnarled old tree, but steady. The work gets done, and that’s what matters- and as it does, the unum become trine, and the trine blur into centuries.

They still never quite sleep at the same time either- one a creature of day and the other of night, urGoh points out once- as naturally opposite as would be expected of them, yet somehow still harmonious. But when skekGra has been going for what feels like days and has finally burned off that manic energy, he curls into the nest of furs and blankets beside urGoh's knee and forces his eyes closed. Sleep still feels far away, but it eventually finds him, and the world fades with the sweet, heavy scent of herbal smoke and the deep hum of urGoh's voice, as resonant as the song of Thra itself. 

He is free of nightmares on those nights, for the most part.

One morning, long after time has carved deep lines into their shared flesh, he wakes to find himself enveloped in urGoh's great arms, their tails intertwined and and bodies curled into the same crescent-shape as the carved stone charm atop the Mystic's walking stick. This is normal now, rather than the rarity it once was, but it still never fails to awaken that sense of wonder in him, the one that he had never come near until the vision faded and they had seen the other for what he truly was. That had been the first veil he had crossed, into a life utterly unlike the one he’d had up to that moment- into the life that had somehow led here, ringed by those same hangings fluttering gently in the morning breeze, painted a rosy pink in the desert sunrise, in a space that belongs to no one but them.

The warmth of the embrace is bone-deep, their breathing even and synchronized, and he wonders absently if this is anything like how it felt to be one single being. It may be impossible to even come close- the memories are ephemeral and hazy, but he remembers warmth, yes, and light and _wholeness_ and this may be as close as they'll ever come again. 

It _will_ be, if they fail. 

He thinks then, for a strange moment, that it might not be so bad to fail. As he had realized in their early days, every moment cannot be dedicated to a grand purpose, and they have found contentment in so many little moments. They could remain like this, building and painting and planning and laughing, withering away and dying in a strange world that has rejected them but doing it _together_.

No, it doesn't feel so bad when he thinks of it that way at all. And maybe that's why the other Skeksis are so consumed by the fear of it- it feels like an impossible thing to face alone.

In the end, he pushes the thought aside. Another treason, though of a different kind- one with kinder consequences, but no less dire for the world they have resolved to save. Perhaps someday they'll have to face that failure, and cross one more threshold into the unknown side by side. All he can hope is that what awaits them there is some semblance of the unity they have chased from a life before, and found again in this one.

Yes, if that day comes, they will face it.

For now, they have work to do.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading! There will hopefully be more of these eventually, but I want to really turn my attention to my other WIP in this fandom (still about them, don't worry) so I can try to get that out soon. Feedback always appreciated!

**Author's Note:**

> This was originally going to be part of a larger oneshot thing, but I decided to publish it as separate chapters and go out of chronological order so I'll have the freedom to continue adding to it. Also, I'd be lying if I said there wasn't a bit of bleedover in this of how I'm feeling stuck inside right now. Everybody stay safe, and I'd love to hear your feedback on my first foray into a new fandom <3


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